HOTELMARKETING.COM

Hotel rate inaccuracy abounds

June 02, 2010 |

Despite travel buyer and hotelier efforts this year, the accuracy of the hotel rates loaded into the global distribution systems has only slightly improved. Meanwhile, another chronic problem, the dropping of those negotiated rates, has grown increasingly troublesome in a buyer's hotel market.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel clients saw a slight uptick in rate-loading accuracy in the first round: 75 percent of rates loaded correctly on average, compared with 71 percent last year, followed by 90 percent accuracy on the second round, said Sherie Hermann, global project manager for CWT's hotel solutions group. "Hotels have done a better job because they're anxious for the business," she said.

Even with that improvement, many buyers are discovering that a good portion of travelers still are not getting access to negotiated rates even after they were loaded correctly. "The process is completely broken. I can't think of another word to describe this process," said Mike Boult, chief commercial officer for hotel sourcing technology supplier Lanyon, who in recent weeks shared the results of rate auditing for several clients with Business Travel News. Even in heavily managed and frequently audited travel programs, travelers were booking the wrong rates at preferred properties about 30 percent of the time, he said. "Even after four audits, the rates are wrong," Boult said.

With faster and more accurate rate-auditing tools available, buyers have been ratcheting up auditing efforts in recent years, said Bob Brindley, vice president of BCD Travel consulting division Advito. While the traditional pattern has been a three-step audit, more buyers are now switching to quarterly audits, he said. "When we launched newer technology a couple of years ago, the first thing we saw was an increase in the amount of discrepancies."

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